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Interview Time: blogger Kerrie Burke interviews us!

Kerrie from Rarely Taken Seriously interviewed us recently and wrote a lovely article about the Louella Odié story so far…

FIVE MINUTES WITH THE LADIES BEHIND LOUELLA ODIÉ

“We believe great bags are like great friends; the best ones are fun, colorful and will be around for ages”

– Louella Odié

Is it just me or is the very philosophy upon which Louella Odié is built enough to make you fall completely head over heels for them? Granted, I had the pleasure of seeing the range of uniquely beautiful scarves, bags and stationery these guys produce first but I’m not sure I needed to in order to know that this brand is right up my alley. I mean, how often is it that you hear a quote like this? Never-mind the fact that it was coined by a business as opposed to your crazy, accessory loving bestie! Looking back it seems I was obsessed with this British mother-daughter duo from the get-go and something tells me you will be too. While their designs speak for themselves Karen and Lauren graciously agreed to answer a few quick questions especially for us here today .

First of all, we’d love to know a little more about you ladies!L:Well, we’re a mother-daughter team, originally from the UK (the Isle of Wight) but currently based in Hong Kong. We create handbags, scarves and other lovely things using original prints which Karen (Mum!) creates in our shared studio on Lamma Island. Karen heads up everything creative, from original concept through to creating the print and designing the handbags. I (Lauren) back her up by covering the sales and marketing side of things.

As I’m sure most of us are aware by now, I’m pretty obsessed with your designs, how do you come up with your ideas? Where do you get your inspiration from?

K: I get visual inspiration from everything around me, but in Hong Kong I particularly like the juxtaposition of the man-made and the natural. As a family we all love to sail and be in or on the water in some way (I have a kayak and prefer to go off sketching in the bays around my house) so nautical themes or sea life also often feature!

L: All of our prints have a strong resort feel to them this year and I think that is because of the island lifestyle Karen and I lead. It surrounds us everyday, so it seems inevitable it would influence Mum’s prints as well!

What is it like to work with your mum/daughter? I imagine it must get challenging?

K: From a parent’s point of view I would say that I have always encouraged my children to be their own person. On one level I hope that I treat Lauren as an adult who needs space and respect as any other adult would expect. On the other hand, we do know each other so well that we don’t even try to keep the family relationship out of the business. We feel it ultimately makes us stronger as a team.

L: I feel very lucky that I get to spend so much of my time with my mother when most of my expat friends in Hong Kong are away from their families and missing them very much. Working with Karen is actually very easy as we get on so well together and the office atmosphere is very light hearted as a result. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are both committed to working really hard. We would never have imagined that we would end up working together at all as we are very different people, but it has worked out really well!

Do you have a favorite piece in the collection?

K: As I designed them all I don’t really have one favorite piece, but I do have my ‘surprising pieces’. I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed carrying the Skyline handbag because I didn’t initially think that it would be my kind of bag. I was also really pleased to see how my prints translated in to embroidery as well.

L: The Jungle Lily tote is definitely my favorite! The pattern started life as two separate prints in the studio, so I didn’t see them mixed together until the samples arrived and then had this wave of recognition that this was a really great match! It makes me really appreciate Karen’s eye and ability to pick and layer colour and patterns.

You both made the move from Britain to Hong Kong, what motivated you to relocate?

K: I was born in HK, so I was keen to come back and reconnect with the country I grew up in. I love the UK but don’t feel a sense of belonging there compared to how I feel about HK. 3 years ago the opportunity to move back presented itself and I decided to go with it and make it my home again.

L: I ended up in Hong Kong because of an exploding volcano in Indonesia! After university finished I decided to go travelling for a few months. I ended up in Yogajakarta in Southern Java, and a volcano that was 20km away from the town I was staying in immediately started to have it’s worst eruptions for 25 years! You could see the lava flowing from the top of the mountain from my bedroom window at night. It was a rather tense situation, because every flight or train out of the area booked up within hours as everyone tried to leave, but eventually I got a flight to HK to stay with friends, got offered an internship here and never left!

How has it been settling in to HK? Is there anything you really miss about home? And what do you really NOT miss?

K: Settling in has been relatively straight forward. I do miss having access to a broader variety of creative events – there isn’t much of a creative scene here in HK. You have to look a lot harder to find it than in say, London. I particularly like the open attitude people have towards startups in HK however, I think it would have been much harder to start Louella Odie in the UK.

L: What do I really miss from home? Tunnock’s Tea Cakes. You can’t get them here so they’re a once-a-year treat, much looked forward to!

What would you say has been the biggest cause of “culture shock” since the move?

K&L: coping with a lack of space – all HK apartments are tiny!

Has living in HK affected your sense of style at all?

K: The really hot weather, and living on such a casual (hippy) island like Lamma means that our style has become distinctly tropical (think Castaway) but HK generally has an international outlook and we’re constantly looking at the major brands when we are on the main island, so style becomes a mix of the very high end designer goods and a more relaxed island-life vibe when at home.

L: The biggest affect HK has had on my style is that I’m now completely ok working the ‘fluffy lamb’ hair style. The humidity here means that even perfectly straight hair is going to be frizzy within 10 minutes of stepping outside!

Is there anyone in particular you’d love to see rocking Louella Odie?

L: If you follow us on Instagram you’ll know that we often sneak our bags on to front covers on Vogue or in to famous paintings as a bit of fun for our followers and therefore we believe that most people could be enhanced by carrying one of our bags! Who would we most like to see rocking one of our bags? Taylor Swift, who we really think would suit a JungleLily handbag.

Can you describe “the Louella Odié girl?”

K: We think our patterns are beautiful, and they are certainly bright and clever so we think that the Louella girl has a personality to match those qualities. She follows her passion and knows her own mind.

Can you tell us a little about Louella Odié’s top three style icons?

K&L: This was actually harder to answer than we expected! We realized we look for attitude icons (strong women) rather than fashion inspiration so the people we admire tend to be the people who seem most fully themselves and comfortable with who they are.

K: Iris Apfel and Helena Bonham Carter are both on my list, as well as Emma Watson for her drive and inspiring work on the ‘He for She’ campaign.

On that note, we’d love to hear about your top three accessory brands?

K&L: Karen Mabon’s silk scarves for her kitsch designs and anything from Mathew Williamson because we really like the way he does everything! Our third choice is a recent discovery called Nurdles In The Rough. This is a small business based in Hawaii which turns plastic pollution found on the beach in to beautiful jewelry. We are so inspired by business owner Kathleen, and the way she transforms what would be bits of broken plastic floating in the ocean in to earrings and necklaces you could proudly wear anywhere. Beautiful design with true eco credentials is hard to find, but Kathleen has nailed it.

Everyone has a “golden rule” when it comes to fashion. What’s yours?

K: It’s more of an anti-fashion statement, but my motto is that “it’s none of my business what anyone else thinks of me” (said with defensive laugh!)

L: Learn what suits you, and then fashion doesn’t matter as much any more. As I get older I’ve learnt what shapes and fits suit me, so I’m happier to play with print, pattern and bright color.

Personally, are you bags, shoes, jewelry or clothes girls?

K: Bags! Wait,can we say bags and shoes?

L: Bags, of course!

What can we expect from Louella Odié in the future?

K: We spent our first year in business building relationships with suppliers who understand that we are experimenting with new uses for our prints. The suppliers that we will be going forward with are able to offer us new materials so that we can begin to think about possible forays in to clothing and homewares. Exciting new ranges to come!

Related Posts

Friends who follow us regularly will know that posts from me have been few and far between recently. 2017 was a trying year. We didn’t think our relocation to the UK was going to be easy but it turned out to be much harder than we expected and we had quite a lot of unexpected bad luck – not least all of our stock going missing for 8 weeks in the crucial spring period. We are so grateful for the many supporters in UK and HK who continued to champion the brand.

All this quiet though has given Lauren and me much needed time to think about the direction we want to take our little company. There have always been lots of ideas which we have juggled to fit into our story and this seems like a good time to rationalise, focus and come back with a strong idea of who Louella is.

With our roots in Hong Kong and our toes firmly in the sea I think our outlook will always be international and islands and oceans focused. As such it has bothered me greatly that we might be contributing towards environmental pollution ourselves. The amount of plastic packaging that is used to ship handbags from the factory to our warehouse is frightening. I am also perplexed and confused by the leather/pleather arguments – faux leather might be vegan friendly but when you see and smell the thousands and thousands of rolls of essentially textured plastic in a factory it doesn’t feel like a viable alternative. There are organic products being developed that mimic leather and this is an area I am actively exploring. I promise we will minimise our use of PU in the future and we will be changing our packaging to remove all single use plastics.

Inevitably one of our biggest losses this year was leaving Lamma Island – for me it embodied everything that I love about Hong Kong contrasts – it was simultaneously connected and remote, quirky and communal, rural and convenient and it was a great place to live and work. There are some wonderful things about living on the Isle of Wight – it is definitely remote, inconvenient, quirky and very beautiful. I can see this island being a good creative base as I do crave solitude, but we have always wanted Louella to be a discovery brand, so travel and sailing will remain our focus and I think you will see more of a reflection of this in both our patterns and in our bag styles.

The discovery of this hidden pin in our bags and its story has provoked really wide reactions from hilarity, (often) confusion, (sometimes) and very occasionally outrage and disgust (because of the F word). We have been really happy to let people who wanted a free pin define for themselves what they thought the F’Weasel represents. We have now sent out hundreds of pins for people who described sending them on to those they cared about who were struggling with everything from unrequited love, distressing home decoration, too many teenagers and inevitably – and closer to my original intent; office bullies. It remains both a symbol of support and a reminder of your own personal strength and we are just so happy that it has connected with so many people.

We are proud to call ourselves feminists and believe in equality for all people, regardless of gender or race. The recent revelations about sexual harassment in the film industry and in politics are not particularly surprising but the amount of righteous anger being bottled up, and the sense of potential squashed by the staus quo, has resonated with me. Obviously women’s issues are important to us wherever personal growth is prevented by the actions of others – whether that is in the boardroom or girls unable to access education due to a lack of feminine hygiene resources.

The animal, the weasel, has a reputation for cleverness and fearlessness, for punching above it’s weight when standing up to it’s enemies or protecting it’s young. It seems a very appropriate symbol for these times. I now think our fuchsia version is boiling pink with determined rage to make a change. I would like it to more clearly define support for the underdog in any situation where Might-Is-Right and regardless of gender.

Our weasel will remain hidden in our bags as I think we need reminding we have the support of many behind us but I also identify with F’weasel’s subversive nature – we can chose to release our inner weasels if we believe we can. There will also be a new line of F’Weasel products sitting alongside our bags and scarves and I would really like a percentage of profit from these to go to an appropriate charity or charities.

I am looking for suggestions and weasel-y-ways of doing good in 2018 and I would love feedback if you know of any projects that we can either support or engage with.

I truly believe anyone can learn to draw well- and I really wish people were not put off trying by thinking it is somehow innate. Sketching can be one of life’s great satisfactions. As much as you might think you need to work on the mark-making, most people need to practise the looking part more.

For that you don’t even need any art equipment.

When I was still at school I traveled twice a day on the bus and was often really enchanted by various things I saw – Hong Kong in the 1970s was quite exotic. The possibility of stopping to draw was impossible and this was well before the digital era so I had no way to keep or record what I saw. I don’t think I was even thinking about picture making as such but I was very interested in being able to recreate in my drawings what I had seen figuratively and ‘realistically’.

The key to remembering how things look is to simplify and to ask the right questions, whether or not you have your sketching things with you. It has become my habit. I am probably on a spectrum of something or other as I find I must count tones and measure angles just for the pleasure of recording them for myself.

These are my habitual questions;

Firstly, what is it about what you are looking at that catches your attention? This is the most important question as otherwise when you start drawing the thing you liked so much can end up off the page because you felt the need to contextualise all the surrounding stuff. (This is one of my biggest problems)

Secondly, it really is all relative; when you are looking ask yourself questions that measure things relative to one another – Can you simplify the shape of something to a square or rectangle, circle or triangle? Can it be imagined as two simple shapes interlocking? Is the tree bigger than the house? Is the angle of an arm or leg really horizontal or vertical or (I use the clock face as a mental reference) more 2 o’clock or 4 o’clock?

You know when you see artists holding up a pencil and squinting? They are using the length of it to measure one dimension in comparison to another. Tipping the pencil to follow the angle of something and comparing that to the horizontal or vertical will also help get perspective lines accurately.

And thirdly, as I work a lot in black and white I always look at tones and divide everything I see into light, medium and dark. Especially in landscape which can be overwhelming when you are facing it with a tiny scrap of paper and an HB pencil!

So, when you are admiring a view, ask yourself where the light is and where the shadow? How many tones of green can you see in a field? Or look at your hand and squint, to do what my children used to call ‘fuzz-eye’ (just go out of focus a bit) and see if you can identify three differing shades of skin tone. Obviously there is infinity of differing tones, angles and possible places to start a drawing but editing out the complexity makes the whole process more manageable.

When you come to draw having the answers to those questions makes recall much simpler. I am not saying I could accurately recreate everything I look at, but take it from someone who was once asked to draw a horse from memory on the spur of the moment on live television (yes, a very sweaty moment) it helps a lot if you have previously noticed and mentally recorded the shape of something.

When you are drawing from life, regardless of what it is, asking those questions while really looking means you are much more likely to take your time and place your marks more accurately. With practise the questions lodge in your fingers and you wont be aware of your brain doing any of the work.

Following behind the yachts racing around the Isle of Wight last weekend I thought about why island living has always appealed to me despite the obvious inconveniences.

A miniature version of anything has the potential to beguile just by virtue of its size; think miniature art works, humming birds, wild strawberries or those tiny handbags which were in fashion last year. At the same time all that twee tininess can be frustrating, think miniature bottles of alcohol or stupidly small nouveau cuisine.

The Round the Island Race, which takes place this Saturday 1st July, is a thrilling spectacle and one of the high lights of living on the island. As a non-sailor Karen’s perk is following the race by car and stopping off at strategic points for strengthening with coffee, lunch or ice cream.

Who doesn’t love to wander through a fresh food market? The strange and colourful species, the exotic theatrical vendors and the vague horror of the smells and unidentified slime underfoot. The wet market is a daily pleasure and a rite of passage for anyone lucky enough to live nearby.

Of course I love the idea that lots of people aspire to own real art. Part of the reason I am passionate about print making is because I like the democracy of multiple images meaning prices can be lower and more accessible to buyers. However Fine Art printmakers get all hot under the apron when they see galleries selling Fine Art Prints, all convincingly signed and numbered, which are not true originals but reproductions. It may be difficult for the uninitiated to understand the difference especially when galleries themselves are keen to blur the distinctions, and in some cases the people working there are quite uncertain themselves.